The Films of Perestroika

The Films of Perestroika

In the 1980s, Soviet society was utterly transformed by both a wave of liberalising policies, and by social and environmental disasters, from Chernobyl to Afghanistan. These films demonstrate how filmmakers responded: by uncovering the hidden secrets of the Stalinist past, by capturing the frustrated energies of the young, and by demanding freedom.

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The Films of Perestroika
  • Little Vera
    Movie + 1 extra

    Little Vera

    Movie + 1 extra

    Directed by Vasili Pichul • 1988 • USSR/Russia

    A scandal upon release, this hugely influential eighties cult film captures the anguished cynicism of the “last Soviet generation”. Vera (the name means “faith” in Russian, hence the pun of the title) is a teenager in a provincial port town whose da...

  • The Needle

    Movie

    Directed by Rachid Nougmanov • 1988 • USSR/Kazakhstan

    Part Pulp Fiction, part Betty Blue, Rachid Nougmanov’s cult punk film portrays the attempt of an enigmatic drifter (Soviet rock legend Viktor Tsoi) to free his ex-girlfriend from the clutches of a morphine-peddling surgeon. Contrasting the sh...

  • Is It Easy to be Young?

    Movie + 1 extra

    Directed by Juris Podnieks • 1986 • USSR/Latvia

    Hailed as “the first bird of perestroika” by Mikhail Gorbachev, Juris Podnieks’ cult classic documentary is a vital document of a society on the brink of change. Podnieks shoots with compassion and anger, giving voice to a generation coming of age ...

  • My Friend Ivan Lapshin

    Movie + 2 extras

    Directed by Aleksei German • 1984 • USSR/Russia

    Russian auteur Aleksei German’s masterpiece journeys into the past, as an elderly man reflects on his childhood in a communal apartment in a mid-thirties provincial town. As a nine-year-old boy, he is witness to the lives of those around him – chie...

  • Repentance
    Movie + 3 extras

    Repentance

    Movie + 3 extras

    Directed by Tengiz Abuladze • 1987 • USSR/Georgia

    Tengiz Abuladze’s black comic allegory – the first instance of a Soviet filmmaker directly confronting the legacy of Stalin’s purges – caused a sensation when it first aired on Georgian television. Unfolding over two timelines, the film combines ...

  • A Short Film about Love

    Movie + 1 extra

    Directed by Krzysztof Kieślowski • 1988 • Poland
    Please note this title is not available to subscribers in the US

    Expanded from an episode of Kieślowski’s epic television serial Dekalog, A Short Film about Love represents the Polish master at his most sensitive and daring. By day, 19-year-old To...

  • Mind the Steps!
    Movie + 1 extra

    Mind the Steps!

    Movie + 1 extra

    Directed by István Orosz • 1989 • Hungary

    A late socialist take on M. C. Escher from the master of the mathematical and the absurd, István Orosz. Mind the Steps! reimagines a typical apartment block in Budapest from the ever-shifting perspective of a young boy. The architecture and its inhabitan...